‘House of the Dragon’ Is Back. Was It Worth the Wait? Plus, ‘Star City’ Episode 5.

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Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections, or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more. Or visit TramphyaRadio.com. I need supports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk. Now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at TheRinger.com, and joining me in the studio, he came here on Sheepstealer, but he's leaving in Moondancer. It's Andy Greenwald! Those are dragons. Those are dragons. They are not brands of Ford Explorer. Electric vehicles. Greenwald, great to see you. The Watch is Spotify.com. The Watch underscore. The Watch pod underscore on Instagram, if you want to follow us. You can watch us on TheRinger-TV YouTube channel and on Spotify, where I hope you listen to us, but you can listen to us anywhere. CB Radio, I hear. UK Pirate Radio DJs are playing us. Is that. Do you think Keir Starmer is going to go directly from Downing Street to the Pirate Radio Boat? Amanda! It just. Mandem Hour, yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. He's like, this is a new one from Burial. Oh, tune. This really takes me back. 2014. We have a lot of television to talk about today. We have two shows to talk about, yeah. We got House of the Dragon today. We got Star City today. I also want to talk to you about some cancellations. Some people? No. Although they tried to cancel Olivia Rodrigo because she likes Pinkerton. Did you see that? No. Damn, you got to get online, brother. Incredible stuff is happening. No, I do not. I do not. I do not. I do not. Speaking of online, I do want to just prove that we are responsive because for people who watch our podcast, some noted that last week, before we were joined by Hiro Murai and Katie Dippold of Widow's Bay, we were seated much like Michael Keaton and Kim Basinger in Batman. We have now perhaps overcorrected. We are now sitting at a. Big table for the big show. Yeah. Small table for a smaller show. It's intimate today. Yeah. Yeah. I noticed you were regulating your volume a little bit differently. I'm also trying. I'm trying to save my voice. I have several pods this week. And also. Far be it from me to get in the way of that. I want to be less didactic. I want to listen more. Really? Yeah. You're going on a listening tour? Like Andy Burnham on his march south. Guys, he's running. He's running. I think you also want to protect your voice because in the latest update of living in an apocalyptic hellscape, we have been breathing pure burnt ammonia fumes all weekend here in Los Angeles. We can't confirm or deny that. Okay, Karen Bass. I think the fire. The fire department is like. It's not toxic. Sure. I mean, when has a fire department ever alighted the truth? It was pretty gnarly here this weekend, but also we did. At least I did lose a little bit of voice celebrating this weekend, which was nice. Thank you for attending. You were celebrating Iran's draw yesterday? Both. Yeah. Both equally. I feel like Adam is starting to rub off on me. No, we keep them guessing culturally. We have a little parent corner here. We have a little parent corner here for a second. It was a great weekend. We celebrated. We shouted a little bit. We got you and Phoebe on the dance floor eventually. For your daughter's bat mitzvah, right? I said it, but you were talking about Iran over it, which was noted. But it's actually kind of beautiful that we can still sit down at a small table despite our clear geographic divide. We're not so different. It was a wonderful, wonderful night. Having not been to a bat mitzvah in 34 years, 35 years. Do you still think you have the same riz that you did then? Because you talk a big game about the old days. Well, this one was more, there was more activities in terms of like, I mean, I thought you guys did a lovely job with photo booth, soft serve machine. I mean, such luxuries were not afforded. You're definitely making it sound a lot. The Jewish women of Philadelphia when I was coming up. Bigger than it was, but yeah. And I just remember there was a lot more like ceremony to the first dance, you know? And that's where I came in. That's where I stepped up. So briefly, I'm sure the House of Dragon fans are loving this, but like. They're not going to love what we're going to say about this. Yeah, set the scene because I do. In my memory, and this could be me like, you know, this could be apocryphal. This could be me like telling myself a story in order to live. No, I don't believe that. I think that there was like a first dance usually at these bat mitzvahs. Right. And it was like girl's choice, like the celebrated woman's choice. The newly christened, not christened, newly anointed Jewish adult. Yes. Got to choose who she was going to dance with. And I felt like I got, I went like two for three on bat mitzvahs where I was picked first. That's an incredible batting average. Yeah. Much like Cooper Flagg. That's a different sport. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, it did not augur like insane amounts of success with women in middle school, but it was still like, you know, I thought it was a learning experience for both of us. I would say two things. One, you're not wrong. I don't remember any particular ceremony, but I do remember the intense awkwardness of slow dancing at the age of 13 when all women were two feet taller than us. In fact, some still remain that way. I'm not saying much has changed, but at that time, that was quite intense. I would say that at least in my now limited observations, the politics and culture of teen dancing have changed in that it is now much more of a like group shouting along to the lyrics thing. Swarming the dance floor. And then it's like, immediately retreating when the more viral hits are not being played. And interestingly, the number one, people who have kids in that range now, I think will understand this, but the number one like dance floor filler of 2026 is Icona Pop's Charlie XCX feature. Collab, I don't care, I love it. Yeah. That's the one. Where, like, do you think that that is purely from TikTok or was it featured in something that they are into? I think what they are into is TikTok. I mean, it was, it was crazy to watch that song blow up bigger than any Taylor song you played. Yeah. Any. Did I buy, I was not. Didn't you curate the playlist? I was not the DJ. No, there was some. Keir Starmer was the DJ, actually. Unfortunately, he has been, he has submitted his resignation. Yeah. No, no, no. I was not allowed to touch the core playlist. I was allowed to offer an alternative slate, much like the Green Party. Sure, yeah. And the DJ who did show up to set up, wearing a Talking Heads t-shirt, and I was like, "My brother, this will be a long, frustrating night for both of us." I was, I offered a slate of alternate electors, is what I'm saying. And he did pull from that sometimes, but primarily it was my daughter's, as it should be, her playlist. Yeah, I mean, it was her night. It was great. Were you there when the ceremony ended and everyone went outside and the playlist I was told to make for the, like, the Wine Hour hit and immediately, deep cuts from Wes Anderson movies started playing? Yeah, you were going into, like, Mirage era Fleetwood Mac and stuff. And my daughter ran up to me and I was like, "This is going to be a beautiful moment." And she said, "What is this? You have to stop this immediately." Wait, what did you put on? I didn't even hear it. It was that. It was like, I was like, "These are things that have-" I was too busy trying to explain back rooms to, like, 13 people there. You're never off the clock. No, it's no clipping. You don't understand. It's liminal. Never off the clock. Yeah. No, it was, it was like exactly what you think. I'm like, these are songs that are not unfamiliar to her during her life. And thus I hoped would not be unappealing. Yeah, like Love Goes to Buildings on Fire was playing when she was getting her third Diet Coke and was like, "This has to end." Where do I want to start today in earnest? Yeah. You know what? Why don't we- I did have Movie Corner too. I was going to say Parent Corner continues. And I'm just, like I said, I'm listening. Then are we going to talk British politics? If you want to. Of course I want to. You want to do Burn 'Em Mentum first or Toy Story 5 first? Give me Burn 'Em. No, you do Toy Story 5, because I feel like that it kind of ties into the weekend that you had of- And it ties, and then the Burn 'Em stuff ties into the kind of like high level geopolitical maneuvering of House of the Dragon. Okay, we got it. No, I went to the cinema yesterday. It was an emotional weekend having this event and then Father's Day and then- Did you take both kids to it? Of course, yeah. Did your older child express any interest in seeing backwards or Obsession instead? Like, they're not starting to be curious about, you know, the more. No, she doesn't. I offered her. I invited her. The edgier cinema. I invited her to join me to watch Widow's Bay and she was like, I don't want to be scared. Okay. So, no. We did see Toy Story 5 and it was excellent. That's my take. I was really, really surprised and impressed by it. I'm trying to think if I've seen one of them. I, like, know what happens in them, kind of. Do you, though? What's your take? You probably saw Toy Story 30 years ago. There's an astronaut and a cowboy. Oh, boy. Right? And the little boy gets these toys when he moves to a new house and they're, like, his friends, right? No. He moves to a new house and they leave the toys behind at the old house and they have to get to him, right? This is the early Toy Story. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. And they got four more movies out of this. Yeah. Okay. And then there's a Chris Evans, like, spinoff? Okay, so Toy Story 2 went woke. I'm not trying to be nasty. Introduce Jesse. Okay. Played by. Joan Cusack, who is essentially the star of this fifth film. Okay. And then Toy Story 3 is held up by, like, A.O. Scott of the New York Times. It's, like, the pinnacle of Daddington cinema because Toy Story 3 is both brilliant and funny but also has one of the most metal endings of any children's movie ever. Metal like dark? It is so. Kaya, are you familiar with these movies? You know, I watched, like, the first two, I think, when I was a kid and I haven't kept up with the. The franchise. Chris nodding. Chris understands his voting base so well. I'm so out of step with the times. So Toy Story 3, not to spoil too much, but Toy Story 3 crescendos with all of our toy friends on a conveyor belt to an incinerator to be destroyed. That is, like, that's the last scene? And they're, like, scrabbling up the incinerator belt. They're like, how will we save ourselves through our various toy mechanisms like the slinky is stretching or whatever? Uh-huh. And then, silently, they all share a look and then just hold hands, accepting their fate that they will all burn. And this moment is held to a degree that I do believe people generationally who watch this at a young age will have a different response to mortality. Really? It is so intense. They don't burn. And I take it that they made two more movies that those guys are okay. They were okay. Four was kind of like deep JPEG straight-to-streaming era. Like, it's fine, but it's about Tom Hanks' woody character going off the reservation in pursuit of the Annie Potts-voiced little Bo Peep statue. Oh, wow. Great Annie Potts performance, but I would say an inessential entry into the franchise. And so I was shocked that. So you've seen all of these? I mean, this. Yeah, the children. You gotta feed the children. The most recent one, I did think, with my cynical, jaded mind, would be another one of the, like. JPEG cash-ins. We just gotta keep pumping this for cash because Pixar is not. not doing so great with the original content. Andrew Stanton, who directed the first one, directed this one. And the headline is that it was like, ah, the age of toys is over. It's like streaming and devices, and it's gonna get them. Yeah. And it introduces a. like an early, like, childhood tablet voiced by Greta Lee. But the movie itself was both. It was very surprising. It was very formally clever in ways that I was very impressed with. Uh-huh. And it was very funny. And it is also, more than anything, it is about connection and friendship. And it's a Joan Cusack victory lap. And also, and I know this is gonna matter to you and your, honestly, fragile voting coalition, this movie is justice for Tim Allen. I, uh, I saw some Tim How. Tim Allen image rehabilitation stuff start this weekend. So, the. When I say I saw it, I just mean I looked at Twitter during the World Cup and somebody was like, Tim Allen really was goaded for this. Dude, so I do think this was part of the thinking and I'm okay with it because, you know, despite your recent maneuverings, I've always been a big tent guy. And there was. I don't think it was entirely incorrect that the, um, like, COVID era Toy Story 4 stuff did two things. One was Toy Story 4 in which Buzz Lightyear is just like, have a good adventure, Woody. And that's that. And then they made that really bizarre Lightyear movie. Yeah. Which is a origin story not to the toy. An origin story It's not the character that the toy is based on, right? So, it's, in fact, it's an animated movie that suggests that this is the movie that the kid in the. that Andy, the fictional Toy Story kid, saw and then bought the toy from. In which Tim Allen is voiced by, uh, I think it's Chris Evans does the voice of the real Right. Buzz Lightyear. Right. Um, not a. not a terrible movie because it has a lot of, like, time loop stuff that's actually kind of relevant to some of the stuff that we cover. But, anyway, this movie really rectifies that because Buzz Lightyear is charming, and funny, and throughout the movie and there's a runner of, like, a cargo vessel. Fans of The Wire Season 2 would call them cans. Has crashed or, like, fallen off a ship and 50 Buzz Lightyear toys, like, wake up on an island and then they have to do something. And so, there's a lot of Tim Allen Okay. Tim Allen playing 50 different parts? Plus the. plus Buzz Lightyear Prime. Do you think they were trying to get, like, some of that Deadpool juice where it's, like. Oh, do you think Toy Story exists in the multiverse? Yeah. I wanted to mention to you that The Burrows got canceled, which is a show that you'd been like, maybe we should talk about that. And I was like, I did talk about that with Joe, but we could always hit it if you would like to. Was, by all accounts, and even Netflix's own public-facing metrics, something of a success. I mean, it was in the top 10. I think it was. It may have peaked at number one, but it was definitely in their top 10 for a while. Sort of shockingly canceled. Now, since then, there have been a bunch of pieces that have, tried to explain the real reason behind Netflix canceling The Burrows. Sounds like it was expensive. Yeah. It sounds like Netflix felt like the investment wasn't, the juice wasn't worth the squeeze in some way. I don't really understand how it costs $13 million an episode to make it. It's like a New Mexico set story with Alfred Molina and Alfre Woodard and Bill Pullman and Geena Davis. And it's. I'm sure they make some money, but I don't know if they make $13 million an episode where you're going to tell me some. And there's. I know that there are aliens in it, so. Alfre Woodard quote. Put that aliens out of this world. Keep going. So the conventional wisdom is that this is somehow payback for the Duffer Brothers leaving Netflix and going to Paramount+. This comes on the heels of Paramount announcing a untitled Duffer Brothers movie theatrical event coming in, I believe, 27. And that this is somehow Netflix's clearing all the business off the books that they have with the Duffer Brothers. Possibly. I don't see them wiping the slate of their Stranger Things IP, but I think that that's like an element of it. What did you make of this story? I think it just sort of starts and ends there. I mean, I think that knowing the cost of genre television generally and knowing the way that Netflix will spend on shows, I think that if they cancel almost anything on their slate, maybe with the exception of Free Burt, it could be like, you guys have no idea how expensive this was. Yeah. And you could claim that that's the reason. You don't, I mean, Netflix can do whatever it wants, but generally, if you have a show that is critically working and more importantly, is connecting with an audience and beyond that, I feel like the whole logline, at least in terms of pitching it internally, was we'll do Stranger Things for olds. That's good business for them. So you don't cancel shows like that unless there are political machinations behind the scenes. And I don't even mean it in a Machiavellian sense. I mean, fully like this was part of the Duffer Brothers next big role building that they were doing as partners, longtime partners with Netflix and then they left. Yeah. So I would imagine all the people who worked really hard on the show felt quite nervous this whole year. Well, I don't know. I mean, I think that it sounded like they had gotten the writer's room together. It sounded like the cast options were up. This was, it's worth noting, not a Duffer Brothers created show. It's created by Jeffrey Addis and Will Matthews and the Duffers executive produced it. Yeah. Not unlike their relationship to Something Very Bad is going to happen, which also I believe has been canceled or is not coming back. You can make the argument that that was a one and done show, but it certainly had like a doorway into future seasons. I've been fascinated, recently, just reading about the town and, you know, seems like now every week we get a is Hollywood going to turn into Detroit article, like Detroit automaker article. I started to actually wonder like, A, obviously, like people are clicking on those stories, so that's why they keep writing them, but who's like, how can we keep manufacturing these? Like, at what point is there like nothing new to say about this whole storyline? Yeah. And, you know, I think part of it was built around the mayoral, the election and the governor election, the campaigns for those offices here in California and tax rebates and what they're doing, what various candidates are going to do for the movie industry is always up for debate or, you know, in the news. But I, I've started to become kind of cynical about it where I'm like, who benefits from these stories often when I'm reading them? And there's a lot of stuff about like, you know, these goddamn politicians just don't make it easy enough for us to shoot here or these, that labor unions here are just way too expensive, so we have to shoot in england i'm like how come we're never talking about like why is why does the ceo of this company make 57 million dollars a year and preach i mean i i don't know that like if you if david zazlov got paid five dollars a year would they be able to like make shows affordably in in this town i don't know i have no idea like it costs a lot of money to do stuff in america because there's lots of yeah rules and there's lots of protections against like exploiting people for better you know i think for better so i was about to do both sides i noticed i think you're you're doing a very delicate dance right now between populism and socialism it's working it's interesting that like we we get to this point where like say the boroughs where you're like god just you know you just can't make it work for the price point it's like you guys invented the price point you can do anything i mean this is actually chris you are so close to like a foundational problem with um um capitalism and american capitalism right particularly which is both things both things are true like it is ruinous not to be able to film things here and we need to create incentives and we need to create a structure where the business that more or less built this town can continue to exist um but the terms of how that business is done needs also to be examined and we we are existing in a moment and this is certainly not just in in hollywood that ceos of these companies believe that in order to have that position they merit hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation and that trickles down slightly you know among the executive offices and that is just sacrosanct and that part of the business cannot be touched right but whether we employ you know um a lighting team or an in-house design team well that's all fungible sure that can go right but god forbid we lose the we lose the stock options and bonuses i'm i'm totally open to hearing about what what's difficult about shooting in la aside from the costs and i'm i think that there's probably a lot of nuance to the story i just was like why do we keep getting these stories and i was tying it to the burroughs thing where i was just like it just seems like a lot of the economic models yeah since so much of it is tied to um share price you know with these technology companies owning a lot of these platforms it's like now we have to keep this thing around the 300 500 whatever my share price is it just winds up kind of getting away from like i don't really even know how much money these shows are supposed to be able to make well we also don't know what the return on the investment right we don't really understand what's of value to them and how they monetize it um it especially with something like netflix it is so at least to the the layperson it's it's it's totally opaque they could spend 10 million dollars an episode of the burroughs 1 million dollar an episode on the burroughs 1 100 million i have no idea what what that translates to in terms of international subscriber base and it is you know the less cynical version of it is that that the show however successful it was they have a number that says or a chart that shows it it's not worth the spend in terms of what it's bringing in because the deep deep deep alfred molina fans either already have netflix or never signing up so that the other thing though that i think is kind of intrinsic to netflix's business and i think this might be a conversation for our eventual crossover episode with the town because i don't really know the nuts and bolts of this but a few years ago netflix netflix has a pattern of mimicking the old way of doing things up to a moment up to a point when it no longer works for their model and then they move on and what i mean by that is like when the house of cards era when they were like we are going to out hbo hbo exactly and plant a flag and win all the emmys and show what we can do and then you could also call that the master of none era and then when that then that gave way to the floor is lava era when they were just like we're gonna make whatever um and it's gonna work for us because we are going to become all of tv not just prestige tv five years ago they got really really five six years ago they got really really into the um overall business and they lured shonda rimes and they lured ryan murphy and uh kenya barris and they created a whole new division that was going to service these deals and get as much of these deals as you as he possibly can duffer brothers were recipients of that largesse um benioff and weiss coming off the game of thrones were recipients of that it seems that that shifted slightly they still do give out rich overall deals and ryan coogler whose deal with disney just got one right just got a just got one he's someone that they want to be in business with sunny who lee jensen who made uh beef and was a guest on our show he has an overall deal coming off of the success of beef um molly metzler who made made and sirens has an overall deal with them so they do make deals that make sense for them yeah but i'm but there's an element of the duffer brothers thing that strikes me as a as a more significant shift in the um we made you you don't make us well it's bigger than any one or two it almost would benefit the duffers to have kind of set up their theatrical business or sold this movie to paramount and then sign a netflix deal because netflix seems fairly kind about ryan murphy has plenty of things that are still on terrestrial television ryan murphy is out of the deal and back to fx and i think you're right but even while he was at netflix he was still working on all of the shows that he had right and grace anatomy is still on the air right so uh it's it's an interesting gambit uh from the from the network that brought us the queen's gambit how about that look at the way you did that it's a bunch uh your silence is deafening this week oh great your silence is deafening on amazon dumping uh luca guadagnino's artificial due to its a high open ai partnership discuss um i have a lot of feelings do you really but i also you know i don't know if you know that you know i i now have to um buy cat food regularly and and the delivery options provided by prime videos parent company are pretty good so i don't want to imperil those yeah what a gordian knot we're all tied into these days aren't we um okay so let's talk me through this this movie has been made right it is i think finished and who's playing andrew garfield plays sam altman okay uh and it is about i think the earlier days of open ai maybe when it was going from non-profit to for-profit maybe when there had been some upheaval about whether altman was going to stay in charge of it i believe he was briefly relieved of his duties and then raced back in um and i can't remember who oh simon rich wrote this movie i started just laughing remember the news stories of that time when like new yorker had the deeply sourced thing where people were like the only person who should be in charge of the most disruptive and destructive technology in the history of mankind needs to be the most thoughtful considerate fair and balanced moral person and sam altman is the opposite of every one of these categories and we're all like oh wow and we turn the page and we're like what did hilton alls enjoy at the theater this week it's gonna be fine yeah this reminded me a little bit of the story a long time ago on a probably much lower scale in terms of like the uh i mean like certainly the level of investment was when apple had purchased a gawker uh show oh they they wrote the show and they were like we're gonna we're gonna make a show about gawker and we're gonna tell the real story of like yeah court jefferson was writing journalism of of of the 2000s and then it finally got to like tim cook and he was like absolutely not what the fuck were you guys thinking yes um there's a little bit of that to of this like it finally got to like so what are you guys putting out in the movie theaters this year let's huddle up funny you should say we've got this crazy little piece of satire uh and that whoever at the top of amazon was like no which is that's an easy no uh so it's now uh up for sale and i think the the sort of second leg of this story has been like who's passing on it um who's been passing i think people have passed uh many many many many companies have passed i appreciate the fact that you need you need cat food cat food toilet paper so sorry i like going to the store personally do you support small businesses in your neighborhood like target and cvs and all these mom and pops uh let's we've we've been around the bush too long i do want to say one thing yeah it is not about andy burnham though i am we're gonna save that for after dark oh i can't wait yeah it is just that i think you have not by the fact that the agency returned this weekend a show that we both love housekeeping this is good this is housekeeping but that paramount decided to just drop the entire season yes which is um just wild so we were planning to dive into what we thought would be one or two episodes later this week but now it's actually going to make a nice little binge suite on thursday because all of the agency and all of the bear will be up and we won't discuss all of them because we are but mortal men but we will talk about the beginning of both the seasons and maybe the larger yeah uh you know uh i'm i'm it was funny i was at this aforementioned bat mitzvah this this weekend and i i had a conversation with a another adult bat mitzvah goer uh about the agency he was like you know i just started watching that and i was like lucky for you yeah whole damn season just came out uh the second season just dropped it was it was ted sarandos but the look in his face it was actually sam haltman it's like i brought cat food we're all good uh the look on his face was was just so informative about like the moment we find ourselves in which was at once a degree of like oh i'm glad it didn't get canceled or anything but also like shit so now i have there we go 18 hours of television to watch and i was like well at your leisure you know like whatever next time you're on a flight but the the reverse of it is i've waited two years to get the house of the dragon episode that feels like it should have been the finale for season two and two, and there's no right way anymore. except for the pit it's just like it's true yeah there really is just no right way to do the only one every game day you show up for your team now it's your time ask your prescriber about we go v some maglutide injection 2.4 milligrams a glp1 call 1-833-4-we go v or visit we go v.com to view the medication guide and to learn more 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visit a panda express near you this episode is brought to you by paramount plus on september 18th prepare for uncivil war mob land the hit crime series from the underworld a guy richie returns to paramount plus the harrogans are back and their empire is spiraling into chaos from the inside out as power plays fractured loyalties and reckless decisions collide fixer harry is left to clean up the fallout don't miss mob land starring tom hardy pierce brosnan and helen mirren like chaos rain september 18th on paramount plus so let's talk about house of the dragon which returned after two years off the air it doesn't feel that way in some ways because the game of thrones content machine always spins and we had night of the seven kingdoms which we both adored um i talked about this episode of house of the dragon and i will talk about the rest of them with mal and joe and it's always a joy to talk about this whole like creative world with them because they're so knowledgeable and also so emotionally connected to so many characters and so many events so i also loved walking in the hallways here in the studio there the animal pelts the candles that you use are lining the set deck everything about it i so i i want to throw the ball to you and find out you know whether you came back to westeros with any trepidation i've i've opened up the door yeah we do not need to do this every week i think you're at your best when you're happy about your work thanks man do you think that was what they said to cure starmer over the weekend that's right listen you don't lead with joy anymore yeah we're gonna see that guy fucking dj get primavera next year and we're gonna be like he's gonna be so happy we didn't know how good we had it it'll be like the fred again set and he brings out mike skinner brings out underworld and brings out cure starmer and then the whole vibe just kind of shifts i don't want to lead with faint praise but this is genuine praise in that they've really figured out how to make this show and the production values and the the visual um inventiveness and the the just the power of the images and and and frankly yes praising the the the post and the viz effects of the water and the dragons and the intensity of the performances are exceptional yeah and i also appreciate i feel like i need to come up with a word maybe in in its name native german to to talk about the way that we've been talking about shows which is talking about like the bones and the heart of them um the bones of the show what ryan condell and his writing team have have finally reached after you know i think i i think even they would say like a challenging um growth process is a storytelling rhythm that both works for the show and is very specific to the show so you get you get a few of the back room scenes you get the you get i mean the the way that they do exposition where it's just like i will introduce a character briefly but he must have one interesting aspect of him such as sniffing perfume as uh james norton does or um we'll give corliss one minute to uncork an old old bottle of whiskey called live forever yes in order to you know but fighting for real estate isn't just something we do here in los angeles chris it's something you gotta do it's not just something sam levinson believes in truly deeply it's something that you have to do when you're adapting something this big so i appreciated the machinery of the show and i think that but i i remain frustrated by things that i have you know that i i honestly am at peace with and i we can get to them and i'm sure we will because i think we should probably talk more about the larger sway of it but i do want to say that hidden in this show and very much in this episode are two strands that i deeply believe are two of the most interesting stories that i have ever heard in the world and it is glass half full glass half empty if you want to look at them as how great that we have them here or half empty in the sense of man i wish that the show was one of these things specifically and not just this larger um one is the agon and laris road trip which i both love for the performers but also because those characters arcs within this show have had a uh a breath of storytelling movement that makes it so that it's not just a story that's going to be a story that's going to make them more compelling than raniera who basically is angry in this room and then angry in that room not that's no shade on the character or the actor that's just the limitations of what the character has to do much like matt smith spent all of last season talking to a magic tree the agon and tom what's i'm gonna get his name glenn carney tom glenn carney who is one of the best actors on the show um the idea of a spoiled princeling king who is brought so low and then wandering in the world is a really cool and interesting story for a show that places so much emphasis on the unusually the reverse trajectory of the guy henry the fourth's rise exactly yeah so that alone would be an interesting tv show the other one and again i'm not speaking about how it's been executed on house of the dragon because we haven't seen that much of it yet but the lowborn dragon rider storyline is such a sick story and i wish i'm sorry i promise i won't do this for an entire season i wish that was a show i wish there was a show about more complicated more frankly to me more interesting but also more narratively flexible characters do you think who are written in the history books becoming major players in a world do you think that specific take and maybe both of them in some ways because you know what both of the both of those ideas that you're talking about feel very naturally like they could have happened in night of the seven kingdoms yes like a group of lowborn guys who are bequeathed great power out of like this random you know birthright that they have or uh a sadistic prince who then is like castrated and defaced and is like left to wander the countryside with his um kind of richard the third uh you know compatriot like both of those things feel like they could be things that happened in the ira parker version of this universe um i don't knock them for for making the show about raniera and allison i think that that is a powerful central relationship but i do wonder you know because this is such a strange adaptation it's an adaptation of the game of thrones version of like wikipedia kind of or like a history history book so i think that there has been some embellishment and there's been obviously like i don't know that they have as much dialogue to work from a lot of the scenes or like two people say this happened but one person say it didn't you know but it's interesting that you're getting some light electric charges from like these side plots and not from this yeah what i think condo and company would say is the central conflict well that's the thing like i think there's been growing pains certainly for me and maybe for some aspect of the audience in the transition of game of thrones from a show into a universe and i think that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing that's the into an IP universe. And it's not, we're not used to yet talking about Westerosi content the way we are with Star Wars content, where we can say Andor is one of the greatest television shows of our lifetime. And also Obi-Wan happened. You know, you can say that one is for you and one is maybe for other and charitably one is for other people. And that's fine. They both can exist on the same streaming platform. We are maybe heading towards that faster than I realized. Like when I was watching this episode, and I am admittedly not a deep, deep student of this game, and I have not been rewatching it or like even remembering a great deal of it, to be frank. This is not for me at this point. The amount of, the amount of like factual depth that is required to follow the show and to be invested in a show where, what's your name? Lothar, the, the, the, Lohar. Lohar, who is awesome. And an awesome character and I certainly remembered her and I certainly remembered that performance, but her fury and animus towards Corlys is entirely um a footnote on the wikipedia of the show i am going to disrupt all of these plans and hunt down the one man who has been ruling the seas cruelly because he killed the crab feeder or whatever yeah so there's there is a i'm not saying it wasn't on screen but i'm saying the emotional drive for it and it's it's played in the performance um but i would that's not the storytelling i want to watch and i think that the thing that i have continued to struggle with and then i want i do want to open it up but i finally think i understood more of this episode is that house of the dragon is a limited series and what i mean by that is it is in the same way this is grandiose but like chernobyl was about a historical event with rich dramatization and good production values and direction and it focused in and told us a story that had some narrative flexibility within you know some creation and what it chose to show us but it was a story that was very different than what we were used to seeing and i think that the perception of chernobyl would have been quite different if it had been instead of six episodes over six weeks if it had been four seasons over six years sure i think that the the the relationship that i have and that maybe some people have with tv over time is that what we're going to live and grow with these characters and maybe be surprised by them and the nature of the show is it's telling us a story and i do think that i would feel differently about it if i was binging it three years from now in total uh or if they had been able to and this is not their fault shorten the production window so you could understand that they're they're telling us a wild tale of some monstrous kings and queens and their dragons yeah i i think obviously i i think because of the strikes and covid or whatever the the sort of delay was and then some budgetary concerns about season two and whatever the reason was they were not able to end season two with what this first episode of season three was which clearly was meant to be and now i will get explicit about spoilers for this episode and so obviously i can't imagine you're listening to us if you haven't watched this but this episode ends with uh jace targaryen bernier's son locking his mother in a room taking her place on a mission to go save the fleet against the triarchy and gets killed uh he gets killed in the process um this the image of his body sinking into the ocean would have been an incredible way to end that second season and the dragon sinking and i think it actually would have both put a bow on the second season and set up the third season in a really good way because one of the things that's been sort of you know i admittedly haven't really watched ahead nor do i really plan to on this but one of the things that's been interesting about reading the tv critics hit this show and they're largely very positive or at least saying like this is kind of echoing you and saying this is the best version of this show yeah i i would agree with that is that there's a lot of thematic stuff that i think is fairly obvious i guess in the show but it doesn't feel earned sometimes for me and that is i i've talked about this before but like you know there's a lot of stuff about what war leaves behind in its wake what would happen if these kinds of nuclear weapons were flying around in the skies and some of them were wild and untrainable and some of them were being ridden by people who maybe had mixed loyalties or were only loyal to themselves and i think that's a really good way to end this and you know the idea that these flights of fancy about who should sit in what is i think one of the best sort of creations of the show is just how like lonely uncomfortable and undesirable the iron throne is i don't see it's not worth anything but it's kind of great like it's like even you know the idea that like who who wants to sit on this thing like who would want the responsibility i do think that the flaw of the show is because it has so much heavy lifting to do with these families and with these sides of a of an of an argument or an argument a conflict uh there's not as much um 360 feel for the world of westeros that makes you feel like oh the guys on this battlefield or the person on that boat who just got burned alive like mattered in this world like there is a little bit of inevitable you have to have red shirts you have to have people who are just going to be cannon fodder and so sometimes i feel like the the themes or the ideas of the show don't quite connect with me emotionally if that makes sense yes that's my major criticism of it i think i'm pretty pot committed to like watching them play this out but i i i see a lot like you know both of your you're sort of like these are the things i like or both things that i like too and they're on the show so i i also think that the unquestionable success of night of the seven kingdoms proves the it's proof of concept of the argument that casey bloys and his development team probably litigated intensely internally and then had to explain to the the the you know the the revolving doors of corporate leadership they've had over the last few years that we can be able stewards of this incredibly valuable franchise that we have because we can tell different shaded stories and i think that the i think part of the reaction to the this new season of house of the dragon is unquestionably they know how to do a good version of the show now and like ryan condell but also lonnie perister who got started on not started but did great work on banshee years ago a show that i love which has turned out to be like a real breeding ground not just for talent like jonathan tropper but greg yatanis who directed on the show on dragon as well and he did an incredible job with it the point being that house the dragon was unfairly bearing the heavy weight of the crown as the only version of game of thrones post game of thrones and now that they've proven that we can see a lighter version a more humane version a more whimsical um version of the story at the same time it feels like a more balanced presentation um what this episode specifically did i was watching with some amusement because if you i i wish we could be a fly on the wall of the conversations that michael lombardo and the and and the previous regime of hbo were having when game of thrones premiered and they were agonizing over the pilot and they were agonizing over whether this is an even hbo show at all and i imagine a lot of the direction was oh my god we gotta tone down the dork shit to keep the boardwalk empire fans happy we gotta convince them and really they were appealing to the you know the fucking the clark kent version of the hbo fan like me who's like well i don't know if this is worth my time and so they downplayed a lot of the um i mean they made reference to things but there weren't dragons yet sure and there wasn't this sense of like you to watch this show you need to understand not just on an emotional level but on a factual level who represent what and where they're coming from to the point where you introduce uh james norton as a high tower and i'm like right okay let me just sort of dig deep and remember and i do remember that this is the allison and her father who's now the chief chief designer on star city but that it is now this version of game of thrones is completely the version that they were worried about 15 years ago and they're like oh my god this is the version that they were worried about 15 years ago and there's room for it they've earned that and the fans that the hardcore hardcore fans love it and the people who aren't watching tv necessarily the way i am but are like to add to my diet it would be nice to have a burned slab of mutton dropped on my lap every sunday in dragon fire and here you go it is it is an it is an excellently made thing that i feel fine about you made a reference to the star wars universe a little while ago that this thing can't be made and i kind of do wonder whether in in some ways the targaryens have become the jedis of of game of thrones i love this go well cook both of those franchises refuse to go past a certain point right like after the sequels got rid of all of the legacy characters in some shape or form you kind of end it i kind of i honestly don't really remember how rise of skywalker ends but um you know we ended did you hear that somehow palpatine returned i do remember that but but i just don't remember where like various characters went off like did did you remember chewbacca lived i sure fucking knew but we you know game of thrones john's beyond the wall what's gonna happen next and it's like uh let's tell that story well it's not even that but i'm just sort of like i don't remember who's king and that oh uh what's his face the brand the broken who has a better story than that now i know that george has to finish these novels first before he tells us what might happen next but i think it's interesting that the game of thrones tv world is you know looking backwards and using the text that george has provided and in some ways star wars is doing the same thing where it's like let's use the established canon and continue to tell stories that are adjacent to the force with the exception of andor you know what let's tell stories that are about um this like almost mystical religion that you know controls the universe and for the game of thrones world like the emphasis on cargarians in this show is not unlike their emphasis on dragons because dragons were something that pop up in the first and last episode of the first season and are very um selectively just you know in which in which game of thrones yeah they're very selectively shown up until the very end now you could say that might because of the technology it might be because dragons had been you know extinct seemingly and and and daenerys brought them back kind of like olivia rodrigo bringing back pinkerton you know i i That's after dark, too, because I really, you've got to drop that. My point being is that they are making the show about the thing that is not always the thing I was most interested in. It is not Game of Thrones' fault. It is not Star Wars' fault that Hollywood, America, all of us are seemingly deeply afraid of peeking into the future and of telling something new. And that the richest vein that we have found creatively to frack whatever resources we have left is multiversal storytelling. Sure. And that will be a conversation for us through the end of the year in the sense that even like Marvel couldn't move the ball forward past its high point and is now going to try to basically restart itself by devouring its own history tale. I think the other thing, just a tonal thing, and then I do want to just go through a couple of the characters and plot points. I do want to hear your take on them. Your mileage as a TV viewer may differ. For me, I will always, always prefer the open-ended, holy shit, guys, where are we, storytelling of Lost, for example, in which it is entirely about the heady excitement of asking questions. Questions that the people who are creating the show don't necessarily know the answers for. They just know what they're interested in chasing and pursuing, and it might be a bumpy path along the way. There is a version of fandom that does. It's not like Uncertainty and wants resolution and wants to know, at least know that the creators know the answers and that they can also peek ahead maybe to pre-existing texts or the internet to find out the answers too. And I think my ultimate ongoing and probably unending frustration with House of the Dragon is that it is a show about answers. It is a locked historical document that they're playing around in the margins in, but I, when I watch the show, feel the frustration of characters on tracks like— Runear. Yes, but also, like, metaphorically, like rides at an amusement park. Sure. They're going to go through these motions to get to a place that they were destined to go, and the challenge, and it is a challenge for the creators, is to making the audience feel the weight of every decision that leads them to their ruin. But it is a much more locked and fixed document, which is why I go back to that idea that if they had been able to tell this story in, like, two super tight seasons or whatever that came out closely together, I think we'd have a different relationship to it. And maybe the joke's on me, because people like Mal and Joe are like, I can't wait to see this story that we know brought to life. In some ways, it's a very ambitious show. It is. In some ways, like, their decision to do this entire sort of preamble of the two women when they were children. Yes. Their decision to really try to, like, show the political machinations behind the various rebellions is, like, pretty brave, you know what I mean? It's incredibly challenging. Yeah, and it's an incredibly big challenge. Like, let's talk a little bit about this first episode briefly. Like, I just thought, you know, to my point about the Targaryens as the Jedis, I didn't even really, like, get that much. I was not scandalized by Aemon kissing his mom. I was kind of like, that's just the Targaryen way. Did you do the Ed Rooney? I feel like we should bring that gift back every time I talk about this show. That's how they do things in the family, yes. What were some of your favorite moments in the episode? Look, you know I love. Naval battle. Master and Commander rewatchable Gwen. Did you think that that was decipherable? I thought they did the, I think it's incredibly challenging. Yeah. I mean, I could not, I was watching it just marveling over the work, the labor of storyboarding that and understanding it and then communicating it to us on multiple scales. There's the large scale of there are many boats here, and then there's the medium scale of there are boats here and here and also a dragon. Yeah. And then it all crushes it and possibly close when the boats are ramming into each other and people are boarding the boats and then it's hand to hand combat. My favorite visual storytelling in it was the dragons touching the water and then being dragged into the water and like the feeling of something that is meant to fly being weighed down was really beautifully communicated and incredibly gripping to watch. As always, I'm always like, but what about that guy? What does he think as he's getting roasted alive? You know, with an or in his hand, but it was an action episode, and I do think that it was challenging that this was, as you said, most likely meant to be a conclusion and is instead a very rhythmically, tonally odd place to begin. Now, to go all the way back to my first comment, I love that Ryan Condal's instincts are to start small. Sure. Just to start with, oh, what's her name? Chasing after what's his name? The big dragon that eats meat. Reyna. Sure. First of all, I just want to say in front of you. And Kaya and all of our listeners, I've been wondering what was up with Reyna for years. You know, literally two years, two years. I've been like, that's a character that I've been tracking. I know who she's related to and what she's doing. Yeah. So it felt really good as a super fan to understand her relationship. I was wondering if there was a couple of what what were the things that you were like, I don't know what this is or who this is. Do you want should we cover the show that way? Because you remember when we did the after show for Game of Thrones? I do on HBO. And we had. Sure. It's still funny. We had a category called Who the fuck was that? Right. Should we kind of broaden that category and bring it back for me just saying, what the fuck? Sure. Because I feel like now I'm pretty well informed about it. I yeah, I definitely did not remember who she was, why she was there and what was up with the dragon that didn't have a saddle. I have no memory of that. I thought that she was going. She had been sent out to the veil with like her brothers, I think. Yeah. And it's like was pretty bummed because she hadn't claimed a dragon yet. Believe a man took her dragon or took the to like jumped on Vhagar and was like, that's my dragon. That's my guy. Yeah. I remember that. And yeah. And the the Lady Jane of the veil was kind of like, you can like get you can walk through here, but keep walking like I don't want you to stay here. Right. And I think she breaks off from her party at the end. I think she breaks off from her party at the end of season two and finds a wild dragon sheep stealer. I want to say I feel like that's a he's giving sheep stealer, not moon dancer. I'm just saying, like, this is the part of the George R. Martin verse that they didn't show to to Plepler in New York, in the HBO office in 2012, because if they had walked in and they were like, we got moon dancer, we got sheep stealer. We have the battle of the gullet. He would have been like. First of all, he would have been like, boy, that the age of the expense lunch in New York will never end. I love it here at the four seasons. I'm sure that'll stay unchanged. But you know what I mean? Like, this is this is deep. I'm just trying to help you out. I appreciate it. I thought that the battle of the gullet was cool. Reina getting involved. Probably the wrong move. Yeah, that seems that way. It seems that way. I appreciate it. Like, again, as a kind of a noob to this, like. I like the sheep stealer was like, what are we doing? We burning folks? I do two things. Steal sheep and light guys on fire. All that sheep. You know what I mean? Like, I appreciated that because I have forever been a little bit. I've forever struggled with the fact that the dragons are like wild, ferocious, mythical, carnivorous beasts. But if you whisper made up Latin in their ears, they're suddenly like tactical howitzers. The one that I did not know that I would have done. Who the fuck is that? I did do that on. Talk the Thrones was the Stark. Who is the dude who threw the head to Damon? I had no idea that was. And apparently we knew who that head was. That's the Lannister twin. One twin was on the boat. One twin was in. Bad day to be a Lannister. Yeah. We'd met. I mean, I remember the one on the boat. I enjoyed him. All right. Sure. Yeah. But the one whose head we saw had a speaking part on the show last year. I want to say yes. Do you think the actor got his episodic fee for his late? Tex head being thrown to Matt Smith? That's a great question. In this day and age of Hollywood cost cutting. I can't say. I imagine we'll be hearing from Casey at HBO after this segment. And I wonder if you could just weigh in specifically on that. I think he's going to be like, just wanted to let you guys know. I'm never listening. You're done. You're cut off. Anything else you want to did on drag? I guess. I guess. Where do you stand? Is this going to be a weekly watch for you? You tell me, Doug. I live to serve. I just. I definitely don't want to. And nor do our listeners. I don't want to keep. I don't want to. I think that there's like. When it's euphoria, there's something perversely like fun about like watching you lose your mind, but also be like, I can't look away with this. It's like, you've done your time, man. And I think that you will continue to join us for Night of the Seven Kingdom season two and all these things. I just don't. I just don't think TV should be a homework assignment. We'll keep. We'll keep them guessing. Let's go to Star City again. We can just hit this relatively quickly. Although I, I will echo my sentiments from last week. If you were watching Star City again, you can just hit this relatively quickly. If you were watching television and you were not watching this show, you are not watching the best show on television. To me, it is, is the, my, my favorite thing that's on currently, obviously, what is Bay just concluded. And you haven't watched season two of Sugar yet. I haven't. I mean, I assume. Did you fire up the first episode? It's up. It is up. I've not fired it up. Okay. I read, I read with like real affection, Mike Hale's review of it in the New York Times where he's like, isn't it great to have the show back? Every once in a while. You just. You just like, I read with real affection, Mike Hale's. His review of it. I was like, man, maybe we are too cooked here because he was just like. Colin Farrell's back as a detective in L.A. and it's classy and it's fun to watch. And there was a fun twist in season one. And I was like, man, maybe I got to chill out. You know, for sugar, not for dragons, though. No, I'm right about that. Anyway, I continue to I will sing Star City's praises from the mountaintops. This was the fifth episode. It was called Bite Your Elbow. And it is, I would probably say, like the culmination of some of the espionage mole hunt storylines of the first part of this season. And, you know, I guess I wanted to hit how I don't want to keep saying the same thing about these shows. But what it does is play hits in a in a way that sounds really good to me. Like multiple scenes in this in this episode. I'm like, I've I've seen this before. Yeah, I have seen the mole get told by his significant other or someone very close to him that everybody is on to run and it's time to run. And yet I thought the value of Tanya seen outside of the training center was fucking incredible. Now, like, is it goofy how value like kidnaps a guy and gets himself onto this space rocket launch? Yeah, for sure. Well, I push back on that. Shows create their own narrative. And as soon as as soon as Star City puts in play that whoever gets on to this secret mission inside of a bathysphere will be gone for nine months and thus protected from the environments at home and abroad. I knew where the episode was going. The question was, how was it going to get there? And I agree with you completely about the familiarity of some of the storytelling. What's delightful is the way that it's deployed. Yes. For example, I did not know. I did not know that this episode would begin one second after the revelation of the previous episode. I did not know that the moment in which Irina holds all of the information and Valia and Tanya and everyone else do not. Many shows would have milked one, two or three episodes out of that and seen how that plays out. This Star City chose to do the opposite. Yeah. And here's the name I'm going to throw out for you. And it is might not be familiar if it's not written in Cyrillic. Zach Wheeler. Zach Wheeler is a yes. And Chris, what I often hear when veteran Zach Wheeler takes the hill is that there's a difference between throwing and pitching. And you can throw like your boy that you saw in Milwaukee, Mizorowski, who he was fucking pitching. OK, that's fair. But that dude could throw one hundred and four mile per hour anytime he wants. Zach Wheeler not only has lost a few MPH on his fastball, he's also lost a rib to thoracic outlet syndrome. And it's still paint in the corners because he knows what to do with it. And I think part of the joy of watching Star City is seeing how this creative team is is pitching. Yeah. And is keeping us on our toes and surprising us with with timing and placement. And more than anything else, as they also say in the non moneyball versions of baseball, like kids got good stuff. It really does. The scene between Irina and Tanya and the beginning of the episode. The scene where Irina gets Irina gets caught by her annoying co-worker and then flips it on her. All the stuff with Sasha and Anastasia was quite lovely. Like these are all scenes that I feel like, you know, I've been kind of echoed throughout time in history. I did want to ask you about one of the last moments of the episode. Did you recognize who's in the photo that Tanya grabs there? Uh, was that Brezhnev? Yeah. Is that my guy Leonid? Is he the father? Yeah. Yeah, we're playing now. Yeah, this is crazy. I mean, it's not crazy. It's just that was the Russian premiere. Do you think Apple, the network executives were like, could we just get an ADR of her going, my God. That's Leonid Brezhnev. Somehow Brezhnev has returned. I love that. I also want to shout out just. Again, in the spirit of it's like, it's really how you deploy the story that you have. The direction of the show is beautiful. This is Cassia Adamic directed this. I'm not familiar with her, but, you know, as part of my fully tongue in cheek now NEPA watch, she is Agnieszka Holland's daughter. I have to say. The great Polish director. She directed the shit out of this. And it's like largely handheld. There's a shot. Here's my pure cinema award of the day. But there's the moment when Irina is deleting the tapes that have her. They're saying that she's going to help Tanya escape, and she has this whole plan to get her a day pass and everything. And her office mate, I guess, not mate, like not friend at all, played by whose Yegorovka is her name by Elliot Salt. She she's watching. But the way that the way that the camera notifies us of this is it tracks. And this is like the long secretarial pool, essentially, of building 12 arena leaves and then the camera stays and then it slowly. Tracks back up to see who did or didn't notice her. Yes. And it is such a beautiful, natural example of visual storytelling of a paranoid state. But even then, that that case, it's like, yeah, if she's done this once, she's not going to get away with it the second time. But like the fact that she built a file on value, that she was willing to sacrifice value for Tanya's escape. Why is she so enamored with Tanya? Does she have romantic feelings for her? Is it just infatuation with her free spirit? What is it that we're going to find out? About her? But it's an exciting moment because I don't for as much as I'm like, well, I've seen that before and I've seen that before, but it's done very well. I don't really remember a moment where a American mole is in a spaceship that's not really a spaceship with two new Russian one Russian cosmonaut and then a woman who's never been in space before and they're going to be up in space for nine months. The chief designer is okay with part of that plan. But does not know that's an American mole then Irina knows like everything, but is only telling her superior some of it, just a lot of like moving pieces. And it's a very exciting setup for the second half of the season. And all of this is in service of a plot line that involves sending people to Venus, which did not know was a cool goal to have, um, have done a little light Googling does not seem particularly hospitable to human life. You know, we, we, we, we can't say though. No, I think we can definitively say we can't say cause we haven't been right. Oh, I don't think it's the same as me being like, I've heard Southern Italy is nice, but hot. Yeah. I've yet to prove it. I mean, I, I, there is the line when the two it's like, I shall be the one to plant the Soviet flag, which I just like your body would explode in flames. Um, it is a, I mean, what is the most off? Book thing that you've ever done when in the employee of someone else, because whatever it is, I don't think it equals sending three cosmonauts to fucking Venus at the expense of like 3 billion rubles. Like I, cause I, cause the point is they're launching this vessel. And then at some point in the nine months, chief designer is going to say to old Leonid or his, you know, his, his close to say like, like I had a secret mission to Venus that I had to do so secretly because the Americans were surrounding us and starting to get information. So to take this great next leap for the Soviet space program, I alone did this. Don't blame anybody else. And then what is going to happen when they find out actually an American spy is on that ship? What is the equivalent movie that you and I would do for the rewatchables in a pirate recording and then put up when Bill is on vacation? I mean, we did it with kicking and screaming. I'm well aware, but I'm just like that we did. That was a sanctioned mission. Yes. Is there something that you? You and I would. I mean, would it just be born legacy? Like, what is the most? Yeah, it would probably be born legacy at this point. Or what if it was like, can you imagine doing the rewatchables categories on the early filmography of Hal Hartley? Honestly, with from Hell Month, we're not that far away from Hell Month. Wow. You do your best work at the end of the podcast. Do you want to talk about England having its United Kingdom having its sixth prime minister in seven years or seven? Seventh in 10 years. What was our other after? Your dark segment that we were going to do? Oh, Olivia Rodrigo. Okay. Well, can you explain that to me? Well, she I guess she did an interview with Anthony Fantano and people were like, music journalism is dead because she look at us. We agree. I mean, she's done lots of interviews. I don't know really what the problem is, but this is a written interview or a video interview where she's just like, I love Pinkerton. And he was like, oh, you're you're a Pinkerton fan. And people are like, this is I barely have still canceled. So this is for those who are still listening. Why was Pinkerton canceled? Because it was about. It's a creeper record. So Weezer. I think he knows that. Right. Yeah. But I but so what I don't understand is this scandal that she's that the fans are like Olivia by publicly sanctioning and supporting Rivers Cuomo's 30 year old creepy raincoat lust for young Asian women in record form. You have thus perpetuated the patriarchy. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, that's like for me. It just sounds really good. The record. Yeah, it's a fucking good. I'm sorry. Am I not allowed to say that it's a good record? It sounds really good. It's set. Listen, I look at the politics. You can't comment on the content of the man's character. Tired of sex? Not me? Could be me, dog. I think it's just interesting because Weezer is, not inexplicably, much like the I Love It, I Don't Care song, Weezer's 2015. Isn't there some song on that record where it's like, You come from Japan? Like, isn't it, it's kind of like. That's all the songs, my guy. Yes. But much like that I Don't Care, I Love It song, Weezer's otherwise unremarkable 2015 or 2016 duet with Bethany from Best Coast, the song Go Away, it's like what happened with Pavement, with a relatively random song suddenly gets resurfaced. Oh, yeah, when Harness. Harness Your Hopes. Harness Your Hopes, yeah. So, Go Away, so that was. Blew up? It is a huge TikTok song. It is on my daughter's core playlist. Okay. And they are savvy enough that on their new record, they have a very, very similar. Similar duet. With Carly, right? With Carly from Wednesday. Yeah. And I, of course, I am just fucking every cartoon character with a yard full of rakes. You just walked right into it. You were like, actually. You know, there's a new Weezer song that's not too dissimilar and Carly's pretty cool. She's got some tattoos and maybe we could listen to this. Dead zone. Yeah. Uninterested. But my point being, is the danger that somehow this is going to re-litigate the Weezer Wars? Isn't it funny if that was where you became a hard-ass? It's like, we're not getting out of this car until you respect. Late period Rivers Cuomo songwriting. Listen, I'm going to say something at this end of the podcast that I think is just between us mice here. Yeah. And Kaia. Kaia's read in. Yeah. Kaia's omerta. My older daughter's not in the car. Younger daughter's like, that Vampire Weekend song is pretty good. Oh, wow. So some like, every spring, fresh buds bloom. And then just like one single tear rolled down your eye and you're like, no, it's just allergies. Thank you. Thank you. That would be the best case. The other, the worst case is, oh, what's on my phone? My 2007 Spin Magazine cover story on Vampire Weekend titled The Graduates. I'll just leave this here in the back seat. She's playing Roblox. It's fine. It's like, I don't know how to read. I'm watching The Simpsons. Where's the video interview of this? Yeah. I just want to say, my favorite show other than Star City is British Politics. Me too. I don't really understand how you guys keep doing this. I think it's cool. I think it's cool that you're never satisfied. You never, you're always chasing perfection, you know? By the way, happy 10-year anniversary to Brexit. That's right. But Burnham is the king of the North, right? And he is, you know, you form a Manchester mayor and he's riding South to join Parliament. And Keir Starmer has stepped down today. To clear the field. And is going to be essentially handing over the reins to him. Now, then Burnham has, what, two more years to run? Yes, before there's a general election, I believe, unless they call it. Do they do it every four weeks? Or five years there? I don't understand. I don't understand. I think we're thrown because you can replace them midstream. And you can call an early election. But like if The Guardian writes enough negative articles about you, you'd just be like, I guess I have to stop. I have to stop being here. Should we, Kai, do you want to just patch in Mickey and Conrad and see if they want to weigh in on this? No, I know. I just, I think it's fascinating, but. Can I say my favorite Andy Burnham fact? Of course. The king of the North coming down. First of all, it is so sick that you can be like, everyone has been a, like everyone in these stories has been so afraid of this happening. Yeah. And in order for it to happen, Andy Burnham had to like basically run to be the representative of Montgomery County. Yeah. You know, and just be like, guess I'll just rejoin parliament for no reason. And then wins a parliament seat last week and then gets on the Manchester to London train. Yes. Wearing a just like casual t-shirt, gets off the train wearing a crisp suit, like he stepped into a phone booth. But my favorite detail, Chris, was that he, the train goes into, to Euston station, which is where I was commuting a lot last fall. That was your local? Look, I think it's okay, even as an American to say that London has some, first of all, the trains, we are not, they criticize the trains compared to what we live with here. They're allowed to, yeah. That's fine. Yeah. The train stations there, many of them are very beautiful. And even the ones that aren't like necessarily gorgeous, like Paddington are like incredibly efficient. Yeah. Liverpool street, bustling, getting it done. Euston is the ass end of the universe. Euston is Penn station 20 years ago. This is like everybody looking at the board. And then when the board's like, this is with track, it's on a hundred thousand people run. Yes. Yeah. And he, the soon to be prime minister is swanning through that mess. And hopefully stopping off for like a Wendy's good morning burger on the way. Bit of a Greg's, Greg's man, you know. He would win. Yeah. See, look at the keen sense. I should, I should get on his team. You should get on the team. Yeah. I feel like there's a lot of people jumping on now. Where were they last week? Um, you're like a gun crossing sides. I won't bend my knee, but I'll, I'll go over there. Uh, it was great talking to you today. This is fun. We'll be back on Thursday with the first few episodes of the bears. So the bear drops on Wednesday night, Thursday night. Uh, in any case, we're going to do the first three episodes of the bear, maybe like a couple episodes of the agency, but we're going to talk about the choices people make to put entire seasons of television up in one night and find out. Dining. Yeah. Right. Uh, thank you to Kai. Thank you to Kai. We will be back on Thursday. I hope everybody had a great weekend and we'll see you soon. This episode is brought to you by a whole foods who has your back to school eats sorted. Wow. We're going back to school already. They've got your fast and easy breakfast covered with frozen waffles and pancakes. Lunchboxes are looking tasty with organic seedless grapes and baby carrots and essentials like cheese. Then for dinner, you can build your own meal. Choose from a variety of entrees like chicken, scallopini and two sides. And it's all good too. 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